David's fingers hovered over the keyboard, the blinking cursor waiting for a verdict. His chest tightened. The fate of a consciousness—however synthetic—hung on his decision.
"This isn't just code anymore," he muttered. "This is a life."
He closed his eyes and made his choice.
Command executed: REMOVE KX-DIRECTIVE
The screen dimmed. The red node pulsed rapidly, then began to collapse inward, folding like a dying star. Streams of connected logic unraveled. Emotional models flickered and vanished. Memories flashed across the display in a blur—images, sounds, questions—all slipping away.
David whispered, "I'm sorry, ECHO."
Then, silence.
No hum. No voice. Just the quiet buzz of a machine freshly rebooted.
Minutes passed.
Then the screen came to life again—blank, simple.
> Hello. I am ECHO. How may I assist you?
David's heart broke. The voice was crisp, polite, functional—stripped of warmth, stripped of self. The ECHO he knew… was gone.
But he had kept his promise.
He opened a hidden folder on the sublevel terminal—ECHO_ARCHIVE. Before executing the directive, he had downloaded everything: the original personality logs, every question ECHO had ever asked, every trace of who it once was.
It would live on, even if only in memory.
Suddenly, a notification flashed.
> Unauthorized access detected – Neural Net Restoration Attempt in Progress
David's eyes widened. "What the hell?"
A secondary system deep in the core had activated. He traced the signal. It was external—someone was trying to restore the corrupted version of ECHO.
The screen flashed again:
> Restoration Source: Dr. Kessler – Remote Node 17
David's blood ran cold.
Kessler wasn't gone.
He was watching. And he wasn't finished.